On Israel’s Memorial Day in 2014, just months after he was elected mayor of Karnei Shomron, Igal Lahav received a fax that disturbed him greatly. He was informed that he had three weeks to destroy all six or seven houses in the fledgling community of Ramat Gilad, a neighborhood perched on one of the twin “horns” (karnayim) of Karnei Shomron.
There was a land dispute over who owned the land – resident Moshe Zar, Palestinians, or the Israeli government. The demolition was postponed as the matter made its way through the Israeli justice system.
Nine years later, a judgment was finally reached. The Israeli government was officially awarded the majority of the land, and Zar retained the plots he had purchased.
Zar, who pioneered much of the Shomron, was a well-respected local known as the “grand founder of the Shomron.”
Zar fought for 40 years for Ramat Gilad, named in memory of his eldest son murdered in a terrorist attack while Zar senior was the security coordinator for the Samaria Regional Council.
Beginning in 1979, Zar purchased many dunams of land throughout Samaria, including Havat Gilad, also named for his son, in Emanuel, Barkan, and Karnei Shomron, as well as six plots stretching from one hill to the other in Ramat Gilad.
An impressive and passionate advocate for living in Judea and Samaria, Zar was born and raised in Jerusalem, joining the Bnei Akiva youth movement at age 14. Along with his youth group friends, he fought in Sinai and was injured in the Six Day War. After the war, he lived on Kibbutz Be’erot Yitzhak, where he met his wife Yael, also a former Bnei Akiva member. They married and moved to Moshav Nachalim.
An electrician by trade, Zar was contracted by Gush Emunim, an early predecessor of today’s Yesha Council (the umbrella organization representing communities in Judea and Samaria), to build power grids for 10 future neighborhoods in the area. The project was clandestine. The grid was turned during the after-party (hakafot shniyot) of Simchat Torah 1979.
“I had a dream to buy land and build a big home for my family,” Zar explained several years ago. “I knew then if you bought land privately, it would be possible to build a house, just as Arabs do, without permits and permissions.”
“You used to be able to do that when this was the wild, wild West,” explained veteran real estate agent D’vora Brand, who had been selling real estate in the Shomron for over 40 years, where each land parcel has a different legal standing.
Now, purchasing land has become a lot more complicated.
Secretly, and through the use of intermediaries, Zar met with Arabs throughout Samaria and, speaking Arabic, offered them five to 10 times the value of their land.
Since for Arabs, the sale of land to Jews was punishable by death, the transfer and relevant documentation were completed with great discretion in order to protect the sellers, but transactions, paid for in Jordanian dinars, were meticulously documented, Zar explained.
“The word got out among the Arabs that there’s a crazy guy willing to pay way over market value,” Zar had recalled. He was sought out by those eager to sell.
“After a while, I no longer had to look for Arabs willing to sell land.”
Within three and a half years, Zar had bought many dunams. He did not carry a weapon. He became well known among the Arabs as someone who conducted honest transactions.
“It is not uncommon for a yishuv (settlement) to have more than one type of legal ownership,” Brand explained.
“The first [type] belongs to the Israeli government. This land is sold by lease to the buyer for 49 years and can be renewed by the lessee or the heirs of the lessee.
“Some land is owned by the World Zionist Organization, which has a settlement division. Similar to the first category, the lessee is entitled to live on the land but is considered ‘guest by permission.’
“Land purchased privately by Arab landowners is usually bought through second or third parties because of the Sharia law death penalty that applies to Muslims who sell land to Jews. That land is considered privately owned, and because of the private ownership, no government office registers the sale.
“When the Yishuvim opened up and developed municipalities and zoning, people were required to apply for building permits. Different neighborhoods, even in the same yishuv, can have very different zoning laws.”
“A fourth category, owned by The Land Redemption Fund is an organization that started post-1967 and bought undeveloped land with money obtained by worldwide private donations that was to be divided up cooperatively within a certain period of time. The donors were supposed to collectively develop and build. There are prices on the land, but some of it is still undeveloped, and it does not need to be registered, although building permits are required.”
The fight for Ramat GIlad
Parts of Ramat Gilad fell under the category of “private purchase of land.”
Zar also sold rights to others. According to Brand, you can lose your land in Israel if you don’t claim the land and build on it. Some of the land was sold to a developer. Currently the land is being parceled out, and zoning laws are being developed.
The municipality of Karnei Shomron stretches behind the Arab town of Jinsafut to Emmanuel, which is on Route 5055. There is a lot of land to be developed: 10,000 housing units and a road to connect the communities. Building requires permission from the Defense Ministry, and land units are parsed out a little at a time.
The ultimate plan is far bigger than the 2,200 housing units thus far approved.
Zar’s hope was to continue to build and to turn the municipality of Karnei Shomron, is now home to approximately 11,000 residents, into a full city with upwards of 30,000 residents. And with the first step of approving the two “horns” of Karnei Shomron, his dream was becoming a reality.
Over the years, Zar was the victim of a terrorist stabbing, and his eldest son, Gilad, a security guard, was killed in a targeted shooting. Still, he insisted that the enemies were not the neighbors.
“Our war is not with the Arabs. It’s with the Jews who want to remove us from our own land.”
With his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren numbering almost 200 and living in various Judea and Samaria enclaves, Zar’s story was a success. You could say he was king of the hills.
Zar passed away on Friday at the age of 88.